Drop Dead Darling [Arrivederci, Baby!] * (1966, Tony Curtis, Rosanna Schiaffino, Lionel Jeffries, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Nancy Kwan, Fenella Fielding, Anna Quayle) – Classic Movie Review 6229

Tony Curtis plays Nick, literally, a ladykiller who weds ’em then kills ’em to his heart’s content to inherit from his rich widows until he meets his match in his latest wife, young Italian widowed sexpot Francesca (Rosanna Schiaffino). When Francesca hears about his murderous plans, she has the same fatal ideas about him.

Writer/ producer/ director Ken Hughes’s dark-toned, adult 1966 black comedy sex farce is based on Richard Deeming’s novel The Careful Man, and made for Paramount in England at Shepperton Studios, Surrey, with some location shooting in Monte Carlo, the Cote d’Azur, France and Italy.

The screenplay’s few genuinely funny lines are mostly buried beneath the raucous acting and the muddled, slackly paced direction. However, the nice cast works hard to uncover any good, amusing moments in the script.

Curtis and Schiaffino are eager to please, and reasonably okay, while Lionel Jeffries, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Nancy Kwan, Fenella Fielding, Anna Quayle and Warren Mitchell bring some much-needed smiles. It is the last film of much admired character player Mischa Auer, as an elderly groom who dies in his haste to strip to make love with Schiaffino on the wedding night.

Also in the cast are Noel Purcell, Alan Gifford, Joseph Fürst, Monti DeLyle, Bernard Spear and Eileen Way.

It is shot in Technicolor by Denys Coop and scored by Dennis Farnon.

It was released on the ABC circuit in February 1967 as the top half of a double bill with Promise Her Anything.

Jeffries, Quayle, DeLyle and Spear all re-assemble for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6229

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com